1. Field of the Invention
Our invention relates to methods and apparatus for facilitating the viewing or removal of selected, punched papers retained in file folders wherein they are secured by metal fasteners of the type sometimes called Acco fasteners.
2. Description of the Related Art
For many years businesses have relied extensively upon document file folders for maintaining documents in a neat and orderly manner. Document file folders have been produced which include metal fasteners which have their central section connected to the support material of the file folder and are flexible such that their arms or prongs can be bent upward in a parallel relationship so as to accept documents which are hole-punched with the prongs then being bent downward towards the file folder to retain the documents thereon, or the outer ends of the prongs may be interengaged with a retaining device, sometimes called a "compressor", which bears upon the top document and is provided with sliding retainers for retaining the outer ends of the prongs in interengagement with it.
Difficulties arise in the use of conventional fasteners when removing a desired document from a stack of documents fastened in a file folder by said fastener and then restoring the desired document to the stack of papers originally located above the desired documents (called "overlying" documents). This problem is greater, of course, when the selected documents are at or near the bottom of the stack. When the overlying documents are removed from the metal fastener, it is very easy to mis-align the documents such that the paper holes are no longer in alignment. This makes re-insertion of the removed documents back onto the metal fastener difficult. Further, the difficulty is increased when many documents are re-inserted at the same time back onto the metal fastener to their original position in the file folder, as there is a tendency for the fastener prongs to bend because of their malleability.
A further problem with the use of file folders having metal fasteners of the type described herein is that the viewing of a selected document requires the overlying documents to be folded back over the metal fastener, such that the overlying documents extend outside of the file folder in a reverse, inverted position. The documents, however, are still secured by the metal fastener. If there are only a few overlying documents folded back in this manner, they may maintain their reversed, inverted position outside of the file folder, allowing viewing of the selected document, but often the overlying documents must be weighed down in some manner because there is a natural tendency for the overlying clamp, whereby the overlying documents are removed by erecting the fastener prongs, manually raising the overlying documents for removal, and inserting the flat plate between the overlying documents and the selected document, clamping the overlying documents to the flat plate and thereafter together withdrawing the overlying documents and flat plate from the fastener prongs, their holes remaining in alignment. Such a device is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,169,255. This system is also undesirable. Like the system described in U.S. Pat No. 4,632,586, there is a tendency for the fastener prongs to bend when the flat plate is lowered over the prongs and the removed documents are restored to their original position in the file folder. This contributes to a malformation of the prongs over a period of time. Further, this system requires that the overlying documents be clamped together before they are removed from the fastener prongs. The use of a clamp makes this system less than ideal because it is inconvenient to the average user and because it does not solve the aforementioned problem of enabling the user to view selected documents without having to weigh down the overlying documents.